Icarus Films

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Dadapass
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:57 pm

Icarus Films

#1 Post by Dadapass » Sun Jan 30, 2011 9:05 pm

Icarus Films

Upcoming releases include Patricio Guzmán's Salvador Allende, Chris Marker's One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich, and Garrett Scott's Cul de Sac: A Suburban War Story.
Icarus also has the rights to Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light, so there is a good chance it will make it to DVD.

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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Re: Icarus Films

#2 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:44 pm

Dadapass wrote:Upcoming releases include...Chris Marker's One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich.
For real, I hope. It's been years since they said it'd get released.

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zedz
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Re: Icarus Films

#3 Post by zedz » Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:23 pm

I was about to point out that it was available in the UK Andrei Tarkovsky Companion but found out that it was OOP already and fetching silly prices. The windows of opportunity for marginal stuff on DVD are getting smaller and smaller.

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#4 Post by Dadapass » Mon May 23, 2011 8:27 pm

Amazon has a release date of May 24 for One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich. From the cover I can see that it also contains Sergei Dvortsevoy's In the Dark and Marina Goldovskaya's Three Songs About Motherland.

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zedz
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Re: Icarus Films

#5 Post by zedz » Mon May 23, 2011 9:01 pm

The Dvortsevoy is a great film. I can't think of any conceivable connection to Marker's film, but no matter.

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knives
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Re: Icarus Films

#6 Post by knives » Mon May 23, 2011 9:09 pm

I've been wanting to see the Marker film for a while now so I'm glad. Probably won't have the scratch for it until Aug. maybe Sep. though.

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bkimball
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Re: Icarus Films

#7 Post by bkimball » Mon May 23, 2011 11:27 pm

Always great to get more Guzmán as he is one of the great Chilean filmmakers. I wish Nostalgia For The Light came out on Blu-Ray, but I know that's just wishful thinking.

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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Re: Icarus Films

#8 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Tue May 24, 2011 12:18 am

Dadapass wrote:Amazon has a release date of May 24 for One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich.
I'm totally broke so of course it gets released tomorrow! At least it's finally out.

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Murdoch
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Re: Icarus Films

#9 Post by Murdoch » Tue May 24, 2011 12:26 pm

For some reason the Amazon listing is temporarily out of stock, on the day of release no less #-o

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#10 Post by Dadapass » Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:03 pm

Nostalgia for the Light will be released on 9/13
Dust -- 9/27
Invisible Frame -- Fall 2011. No DVD link yet but here is the films page.

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#11 Post by Dadapass » Fri Jul 29, 2011 5:48 pm

Dadapass wrote:Nostalgia for the Light will be released on 9/13
It will also be released on blu-ray. I think it will be their first blu-ray.

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#12 Post by Dadapass » Sat Dec 10, 2011 7:47 pm

Apparently Icarus released a dvd double-bill of Milestones and Ice on the 6th. It is listed as temporarily out of stock on Amazon.

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Fiery Angel
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Re: Icarus Films

#13 Post by Fiery Angel » Sun Dec 11, 2011 12:35 am

seems to be out of stock everywhere....can anyone find it?

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#14 Post by Dadapass » Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:04 am

Akerman's From the Other Side - 4/24
Will include South as an extra feature.

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tavernier
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Re: Icarus Films

#15 Post by tavernier » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:25 pm

They've acquired 6 Imamura films, including A MAN VANISHES:
SIX (6) RARE SHOHEI IMAMURA FILMS ACQUIRED BY ICARUS FILMS FOR U.S. DISTRIBUTION

July 10, 2012, New York: Icarus Films today announced its acquisition of all North American distribution rights to six films by the celebrated Japanese director Shohei Imamura, including the renowned 1967 film A MAN VANISHES.

The only Japanese director to twice win the Palme d’or, the highest honor of the Cannes Film Festival, Shohei Imamura (1926-2006) was “one of the most significant filmmakers of Japan’s postwar generation.” (Dave Kehr, The New York Times)

“Humanist, iconoclast, ‘anthropologist,’ investigator and innovator, Imamura has produced a body of work over the past four decades that is unequalled for its audacious insights into Japanese society, its tumultuous energy and formal daring,” wrote James Quandt, curator of a Imamura film retrospective and editor of Shohei Imaura.

Never before released in the United States, these six films were all made during a pivotal time in the filmmaker’s career from 1967 to 1975. They include his first independent production A MAN VANISHES, a key work in the filmography of a director who said “I’d like to destroy this premise that cinema is fiction.”

An investigation into the disappearance of an office worker, A MAN VANISHES conflates the boundaries of documentary and fiction. It is an early example of what film historian Donald Ritchie called, “One of Imamura’s major themes… [the] confrontation of illusion with reality (and the resultant problem of telling which is which).”

Also being released by Icarus Films are five Imamura documentaries that explore related themes of disappearance and return and in which he “opened up various unhealed wounds from the war years.” (Tony Rayns, The Independent) Information about the films is included below.

Jonathan Miller, president of Icarus Films, negotiated and concluded the distribution agreement with Anais Clanet, Manager and Head of Sales for Wide House/Wide Management. Icarus Films is currently producing newly subtitled, high definition masters
of the films. They will be released to theatrical audiences this fall; a special boxed-set of all six films will come to home entertainment audiences in the winter.

The films are:
A MAN VANISHES NINGEN JOHATSU / 人間蒸発 / 130 minutes / 1967 When a seemingly contented businessman disappears without a trace, his fiancé goes to great lengths to find him in this gorgeously photographed black-and-white film.

IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN MALAYSIA MIKAHEI O OTTE / 未帰還兵を追って~第一部 マレー篇 / 50 minutes / 1971 Camera in hand, Imamura embarks on a quest for soldiers who deserted the Japanese army for life in the neighboring country of Malaysia during World War II.

IN SEARCH OF THE UNRETURNED SOLDIERS IN THAILAND MIKAHEI O OTTE N°2 / 未帰還兵を追って~第二部 タイ篇 / 50 minutes / 1971
In a follow-up to his portrait of men who abandoned the Japanese army for life in Malaysia, Imamura conducts a corresponding investigation in Thailand.

THE PIRATES OF BUBUAN BUBUAN NO KAIZOKU / ブブアンの海賊 / 46 minutes / 1972
Remote and impoverished islands in the Philippines are revealed to be the home of rival factions of pirates in this absorbing investigation into a little-known way of life.

OUTLAW-MATSU RETURNS HOMES MUHOMATSU KOKYO E KAERU / 無法松故郷に帰 / 47 minutes / 1973
A fiery, fiercely independent soldier and friend of the filmmaker comes home back to Japan after 33 years spent living in Thailand… only to be greeted by family conflict and ambivalence.

KARAYUKI-SAN, THE MAKING OF A PROSTITUTE KARAYUKI SAN / からゆきさん/ 70 minutes / 1975
As young girls, the Japanese sex-trafficking victims profiled in this powerful documentary were taken to Malaysia and forced to work as prostitutes.

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Gregory
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Re: Icarus Films

#16 Post by Gregory » Tue Jul 10, 2012 5:43 pm

That'll be the third time I've shelled out for A Man Vanishes. Great film, and unfortunate (from Nick's comments last year) that the HD masters weren't quite good enough to justify the cost of a blu-ray release.

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joshua
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Re: Icarus Films

#17 Post by joshua » Tue Jul 10, 2012 6:02 pm

Wow! I've been wanting to see some of these for a long time. I know it's little greedy to want more but I did feel a little twinge of disappointment when I noticed that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess wasn't included in the deal. Oh well, hopefully it'll surface on disc someday.

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zedz
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Re: Icarus Films

#18 Post by zedz » Tue Jul 10, 2012 7:44 pm

Bloody hell! That's fantastic news! This set will start to plug the biggest hole in the availability of Imamura's films. The omission of History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess is indeed unfortunate, but on the other hand that's the film from that period that's best known and most likely to find a good release somewhere else. These five TV documentaries were more in the when-hell-freezes-over category.

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George Kaplan
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Re: Icarus Films

#19 Post by George Kaplan » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:02 pm

This Imamura news is the most exciting thing announced in ages. I'd practically despaired of ever seeing most of these works, particularly the ones not even listed in many of Imamura's filmographies. I have seen KARAYUKI-SAN before (in a less than stellar print) and found it completely fascinating and heartbreaking.

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Michael Kerpan
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Re: Icarus Films

#20 Post by Michael Kerpan » Tue Jul 10, 2012 8:35 pm

Great news (except for the omission of Bar Hostess).

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feckless boy
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Re: Icarus Films

#21 Post by feckless boy » Wed Jul 11, 2012 4:15 am

joshua wrote:/.../a little twinge of disappointment when I noticed that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess wasn't included in the deal.
Since Bar Hostess wasn't on the Japanese dvd release of Imamura's documentaries either maybe the rights situation is complicated.

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whaleallright
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Re: Icarus Films

#22 Post by whaleallright » Fri Jul 13, 2012 12:04 am

I've only ever seen Hostess in a really mutilated print with French subtitles, so I'm wondering if there aren't some sourcing and rights issues there.

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Dadapass
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Re: Icarus Films

#23 Post by Dadapass » Sat Jul 21, 2012 3:48 pm


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warren oates
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Re: Icarus Films

#24 Post by warren oates » Sat Jul 21, 2012 6:38 pm

Fantastic news. dGenerate has the U.S. rights to so many interesting and important contemporary Chinese films I've been dying to see. Yes, they rent some of them via Amazon. But some of the most talked about ones like Oxhide have been priced exclusively for institutional purchase or rental only. I'll likely be happily blind buying a number of these titles as soon as they are out.

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Re: Icarus Films

#25 Post by Adam » Sat Jul 21, 2012 8:11 pm

I may try to screen those Imamura films or a subset, in Los Angeles (at Los Angeles Filmforum), in a theater, the way they should be seen. :-)

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